


Heart of Flesh

by Silverheart



Series: Bats and Birds [21]
Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Extended Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Jason Todd feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:12:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Jason slowly learns how to be a person again, the consequences of his decisions and madness come calling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You really don’t have to do this,” Jason said, probably for the hundredth time.

“You’re living on the streets,” Dick told him, already headed up the stairs.

Jason looked around the fancy lobby. He took a deep breath and followed Dick. “I manage.”

“You can do better than manage.”

“Trust me,” Jason said, “I’m good with managing.”

A somber look crossed Dick’s face and was gone. “Here we are, second floor.” He led Jason down the hall. “207. A lucky number in there and everything.”

“Stop trying to sell it so hard.” Jason rubbed his face. “Just give me the damn key.” He snatched it from his brother’s hand and unlocked the door. It was easy, the lock working like it should.

It immediately made him uneasy.

He walked in and dropped his duffelbag. “What do you think? I had it furnished,” Dick said.

“Surprisingly tasteful despite your involvement.” It was, too, everything done in simple dark woods and soft browns. It looked like something out of a catalog. His uneasiness continued. It felt familiar, like a taste he’d known once but couldn’t connect to anything.

“Also, Barb did some shopping for you. So now you have clothes that fit.”

“Uniform fits.” Jason slid a hand along the kitchen counter. It felt like real granite. “You don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t.”

“We want to.”

“Want.” He opened a cupboard. All the basics. “Right. You want to.”

“You okay, Jason?”

“I just…this...you shouldn’t.” He pulled out a box of mac-and-cheese and stared at it for a solid minute. “The real world doesn’t work like this.”

Dick came around and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, man. We want to help you. We’re glad you’re home.”

“I know. I guess I just keep thinking it’s a…” Was there a word for the thing you wanted when you were in agony? A single term for the impossible thing you drifted to because animal instinct was ordering your heart to keep beating? “A dream.”

They didn’t want to hear about it. He didn’t want to inflict it upon them.

“It’s not. This place is yours.”

“How did you pull that off anyway? I’m dead.”

“Only legally. A pseudonym here, a bank account there. Tim and Barb worked it out. It’s more their kind of nerdy thing.”

“Right.” Jason looked at the condo again. “This is really too nice for me, Dick.”

The other man laughed. “You said the same thing to Bruce about your _shoes_ when he adopted you. I remember that. Only teenager in the world who’d say something like that. It confused the hell out of Bruce, too.”

That was where the uneasiness was from. It was how he’d felt after Bruce had taken him in. He’d buried all those memories.

Or had them buried. He didn’t know anymore.

“Thanks,” he said. The word nearly stuck in his throat, and seemed rusty from lack of use.

“Always, Jason.” Dick kicked at the duffel bag. “This everything you have?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?” Dick kicked at it again. Jason glared. It would serve him right if one of the pistols went off and left him with a bullet through the foot.

“It’s my Red Hood gear, some clothes, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste.”

“Okay, then. Well, if that’s all you got, I guess it’ll be easy for you to unpack. You want me stick around?”

“I’ve got it. I know you need to get back.”

“Blüdhaven won’t go to hell that quickly. If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

A dream. This had to be a dream. “I know.” Or he thought he knew. He could say the words in his head, understand what they meant together, but he wasn’t sure the concept got through all the way to his soul. “I need some time to get used to it.”

“Okay.” Dick slapped him on the shoulder as he walked out. “Call when you get the chance, okay?”

“Sure.”

Jason stared at the box of pasta again as the door shut. Right, well. His own place. He should start putting his stuff away now.

He shoved the box back in the well-stocked cupboard and went to his duffel, unzipping it and yanking out his things, setting them on the coffee table, nearby. The motions felt disjointed and otherworldly in this place, even handling the guns, his lifeline and tools of trade. He took his time checking them over and cleaning them, hoping the familiarity would bleed over into the room.

He shouldn’t be here, a part of him, a very loud part, was saying over and over again. He was meant for the streets. He was tougher than all this fine furniture and clean carpet. He was stronger than the charity of Bruce Wayne’s family. He was the one who’d been abandoned. He was the dirtied one. He was the one weak enough to fail.

Weak enough to crack clean through.

A knock at his door pulled him out of his thoughts. He frowned and tossed his red-hooded jacket over one of the armchairs. Who the hell would be knocking on his door? If it was the replacement, he’d loosen a few of the kid’s teeth…

He peered through the peephole and saw the top of a blonde female head. Well, whoever was knocking wasn’t very tall.

Probably selling something. This damn city. He sighed and opened the door.

“Hello,” the woman said with a million watt smile. Selling something, definitely. “I’m sorry to bother you, I just saw you and your friend while I was waiting for the elevator, and I was wondering if you could maybe help me with a problem I’m having? Maybe?”

He blinked at her for a moment. “Uh, sure. What’s, um, what’s the matter?”

“I need someone to scare away my stalker.”

He was not expecting that. It did, however, fall into the realm of doable. Even fun. “Point me at him,” he said with a shrug.

“Thank God!” she shouted, relieved, “Every other guy in this stupid building tells me I should just sleep with the bastard.”

This damn city. “Where is he?”

“In front of my door, around the corner.” She jerked her head to the right, an ashen blonde ponytail flying. She had big, clear grey eyes, too honest to be trustworthy, not in Jason’s experience. There was many a murdering whore in this world with honest eyes.

She and this ‘stalker’ were probably expecting to get a jump on a rich guy, take his key, and rob him blind. Well, he might as well play along and ensure some more scum was cleaned off the streets. “Why don’t you try to talk to him down before I punch his face in?” Jason asked, grabbing his key from where Dick had hung it on the wall. He would have felt weirdly comfortable with a stupid kitschy wall hook, but this one was as stylishly simple as everything else.

“CYA. Dad used to say that a lot. Gotcha.” She took the lead, a bounce in her step. Well, wasn’t someone excited? Expecting a big payday, maybe?

He kept a few steps behind as they near the corner. She hesitated a moment, glancing back at him and biting her lip. It was cute. He nodded in reassurance and she squared her shoulders before turning the corner.

Jason kind of wished this wasn’t all a scam he was about to bring to a bloody end.

The ‘stalker’ was a tall, skinny, ratty sort of guy, dressed all in dark clothes with a fancy camera around his neck. His eyes lit up as the woman approached. “Miss Laurel!” he squeaked, “I, er, I was hoping this was your place!”

“It is,” she declared, deadpan, “And you need to leave _now_.” None of that hesitance showing now. “I’ve told you a million times, Chester—“ Seriously? _Chester_? “I don’t want you bothering me. I don’t want you around. Go away.”

He gave a creepy smile that may have been shooting for shy. They were very good at this scam, because Jason was nearly convinced that the man was a stalker. “You don’t mean that. You’re a rich girl, Miss Laurel. You love this kind of attention as much I love giving it to you.”

The woman drew back at his tone and shuddered.

Jason’s brows lifted. Well, shit. This was the real thing after all.

He wouldn’t have to feel bad about what he was going to do to the guy, then. Not that he would have, but he was aware that someone maybe could.

“No, she doesn’t,” he said, coming forward, “So leave the lady alone, slimeball.”

Chester scowled. “Listen, man, she’s given her heart to me. She’s just shy about it, that’s all. It’s one of the cutest things about you, Miss Laurel.” He flashed her what was trying desperately to be a sweet, loving look. “So go away.”

“You need psychological help.” Jason lunged, slamming an uppercut into the underside of Chester the stalker’s jaw. His eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped like a sack of wet cement. Or, well, sack of dry twigs. He was really skinny. “Too bad that’s not what I do.” He kicked him in the ribs hard for good measure.

He turned around to see the woman watching with one hand on the wall next to her door. She looked up from the unconscious stalker to give him a real smile. “Thank you!” She hid her face in a hand. “God, I didn’t know what to do. No one _cared_.”

For some reason, he always expected people to cringe when they saw him met out justice to slime like this. They did sometimes, at the sound of the shot or breaking bone or the sight of blood. But afterwards, even if the violence made them sick, they were grateful.

“Well, I do,” Jason told her lamely. He hauled the stalker up by the scruff of his ratty neck. “I think I’ll go toss this in the trash.” He couldn’t just kill the guy in the hallway, or at all. The thing about scaring criminals was that one of them had to get away to tell everyone else just how bad an idea crime was. And there was only one here.

“My name’s Megan,” she said, nodding, taking out her key, “If you ever need anything, let me know.”

“Name’s Jason.” He had no idea what alias Barb and Tim had put on the condo and he didn’t care. “I won’t, but thanks all the same.”

She laughed as she opened her door. The air from inside smelled nice. “Brave men always say that. It’s not true, you know.”

Ten minutes later, Jason sized-up Chester the stalker as he stuffed him through a maintenance trash chute. _This_ had scared away the other men in the building? He was just a delusional creep with a camera and an attitude.

This damn city.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason’s trigger finger itched. He shoved away the desire to kill the gang below. It wouldn’t help keep the goods from their buddies. He needed to find out where the big fish was hiding.

Most of the criminal enterprises in Gotham were, unfortunately, not like Black Mask’s. Apparently he was a saner, more compassionate criminal employer –the bar wasn’t very high around here— but he also had a long string of violent failures, so his operation was small. Jason could drop through a ceiling and beat the location of the boss out of the small fry, no problem.

Two-Face? He had to do some investigating. Follow leads. Deduce things.

He was _not_ temperamentally suited to this. Couldn’t he just shoot one? Would it really interfere with his progress?

“So,” a voice said in his ear, almost making him jump, “How’s the new place?”

“Oracle, now’s not a good time.”

“You’re not shooting anyone tonight.”

“Don’t remind me,” he told her, flexing his empty right hand, “Thanks. For the place. And the bank account.”

“It’s no problem. You’re family, Jason.”

Yeah, he was. Even with everything, somehow. “You have any leads on Two-Face?”

“No more than what I’ve already given you. I guess he’s decided to use a less top-down approach to management.”

“Maybe he took a business class in Arkham.” He sighed, watching the gang slowly back a truck into the warehouse loading dock. There was a lot more caution than usual with this one and none of their usual bullshitting. They didn’t even react to shipments of Fuerza’s nerve gas like that. “Heads he studies for the test, tails he blows it off and goes to happy hour instead.”

“You and Nightwing should have a comedy show,” she said drily, “Huh.”

“What?”

“Something’s up at Arkham.” Chills ran down Jason’s spine. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“You do that.”

The gang started approaching the van. They’d all put their guns away. What, was it a shipment of rabid weasels or something?

“Remember what this stuff is like,” the leader said from way back in the room, “Don’t spill a drop.”

“Doesn’t it need to be set on fire or something like that to work?”

The leader shot the speaker a dirty look. “Remember what this stuff did last Halloween! Or are you one of those new guys?” He spit out some of his chewing tobacco in the other man’s direction. “Next time we get one of these, you’re on the unload crew, smartass.”

Last Halloween? _No_. Scarecrow was in Arkham, under lock and key and straightjacket, rendered incoherent by his own toy. It had to be one of the other things that had been on the streets that night. There’d been a lot of them. He knew. He’d been a part of making sure there were.

The unload crew gently opened the van doors to reveal racks and racks of amber vials.

Jason began cursing under his breath. He marked the location on his GPS and noted the van’s license plate. He’d given up on following them a week ago; they never led anywhere but some motel where the drivers apparently lived. They picked up the goods from one drop point and took it to another, to include the docks; they were smuggling most of this stuff out of the city.

This van, though, he was following this one.

The drivers didn’t even get out. As soon as the gang signaled they’d finished unloading and shut the doors, they took off.

Jason rushed to pull the vent off the wall and get outside. It wasn’t blazing a trail, at least. He had to get that electronic tag system from Dick.

And maybe rig a glider, because rooftop jumping was getting to be hell on his knees.

And please God, let that delivery not be what it seemed like. He’d never thought he’d plead for anything ever again, but he was going to beg for that.

Because if it was fear toxin, then it was all his fault.

He hit another rooftop badly, managing to turn it into a roll. The van got too far ahead and went across the bridge ahead.

Towards Arkham Island.

“Oracle,” he called.

“Yes?” she asked, tense.

“What’s going on at Arkham?”

“Minor breakout. Robin’s on it.”

“Just tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Because I just saw some of Dent’s goons unload racks of fear toxin. And yes, I’m pretty sure that was what it was.” It sure as hell looked the same as the long racks he’d walked along as they prepared to move on Gotham, gloating at his coming victory, the coming death of Batman.

Barb was quiet for a long time. “When the Asylum’s system unlocks, I’ll see what I can find on Scarecrow. He’s been in maximum security ever since he got there. What I’ve been reading has him as non-functional. “

“Functional is relative,” Jason muttered, “I’m going to see if I can get a sample. Can the replacement handle the riot?”

“Screw. Off,” a panting Tim called.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He took a fire escape towards street level. “Let me know if you need me to save his ass.”

* * *

He opted to be sneaky about this and go in during the day.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the warehouse guards asked as he approached.

“New hire.” He stood in the parking lot, hands in his pockets, as the guy inspected him. He’d attempted to try chewing gum to get the complete the look, but it made his TMJ act up, so the slouch was going to have to do the trick. “James Cooley said this was where to go, so here I am.”

The guard shook his head and sneered. “This is what we’re down to these days? I remember when you had to have prison tats to even clean the toilets.”

Jason wondered why the brand didn’t give him the required street cred. “Hey, I just need cash, man.”

“Desperate, too, pretty boy?” Was that brand invisible to every other human being? “Fine, whatever. Hey, Max, take over while I show this kid around.”

Jason had to give him the age thing. He was twenty-eight, or so, if he had been born when he thought. Most of these guys had to be in their very hardened late thirties. An old boys club, then? He wondered where the young thugs had gone. Probably someplace everyone would prefer they weren’t.

Jason followed the guard. “Cooley always sends us the most useless fuckers,” he growled, “Stupid paper-pusher. If I wanted to deal with an HR department, I’d be in a different business.”

Jason shook his head wearily. “I just need money, like I said. I’ll even scrub the fucking toilets.”

“Nah, that one’s special. Have to piss off the boss first.” These people were just school yard bullies with guns. “I don’t suggest it.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Good idea.” They stopped in front of a makeshift vault. Jason fought back a grin. Right where he wanted to be. “Your job is to make sure the goods stay secure.”

“With two guys out front?”

“Seven. We’re a smarter operation than that.” Right. A pack of geniuses, here. “It’s a…what did the boss call it? A red— redund— backup measure.”

Jason looked at the vault with false dubiousness. “Okay, I guess. Can I get a chair?”

“And fall asleep on the job? Hell no. Bathroom’s down the hall. You’re on until seven, then get out, and fast.”

“What about my money?”

“I’ll swing by before you leave,” the guard answered over his shoulder.

Jason sighed and leaned against the vault, listening to the sounds of the building. It was ghost town. Some ventilation fans turned. Water dripped somewhere down the way, probably in the bathroom.

He let a few minutes of lonely quiet pass, then turned to the vault. Time to put some very old skills to the test.

The lock was simple combo lock, easy enough to open if you had ever had to make a living off stolen goods. Jason had, of course; he’d fed himself off of stolen Gotham U bikes for eight months when he’d been thirteen.

The lock clicked with very little effort on his part, though it seemed loud as hell in the vast silent emptiness. He held off opening the door for a moment to make sure it was all clear, then slipped in.

Guns were stacked in labelled racks along the walls. It looked like more of those damned lasers. No nerve gas, though, just the racks of what he prayed again wasn’t fear toxin.

Carefully, Jason extracted one and wrapped it in a rag before stashing it in his jacket pocket. He’d get this to Oracle tonight.

Before he closed the vault door, though, he glanced at the toxin vials and stopped.

 _Not again_. Not when he could stop it.

He walked over and threw the racks to the ground with a crash. The toxin was harmless unless ingested or inhaled—and now it couldn’t be.

He turned and relocked the vault door, resuming his sentry duty with an appropriately bored look. Come quarter til seven, the guard slapped some cash in his hand and told him to scram. Jason promptly did.

There’d be hell to pay when they opened that vault. He kind of wished he could stick around to watch.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason stomped up the building’s stairs slowly.

He hurt this evening. The weather was changing, a thunderstorm coming in, and it sent little flares of pain through his whole body, nerve and muscle damage responding to the shifting pressure. 

Also, Scarecrow had escaped Arkham last night. He’d like to blame Tim for incompetence, but the kid had been stuck wrangling Bane and Croc at once on top of the more average lunatic. 

The reappearance of fear toxin—and that’s what it was, though Barb had found it to be an older version—made Jason feel like it had been planned. 

Who the hell would be breaking Scarecrow out, at this point? The guy didn’t even have the pretense of people skills. He was a mad scientist, whose life purpose and choice of voyeurism was seeing other people turned into quivering mockeries of humanity. 

If he hadn’t been willing to finance the Arkham Knight, Jason would never have bothered with him. 

But they’d had a common goal.

He rubbed at his shoulder as he got to his floor. “An answered prayer this once would have been nice,” he said, resting his head against the door.

Before he could do anything about this, he needed to get some rest. He opened the door and had a slightly disoriented moment. The halls were at the wrong angle…he’d taken a different flight up than before. Which meant an even longer walk to his place.

Megan Laurel was juggling groceries while trying to open her door. Jason, aching, tired, and frustrated, watched her for a moment before giving up and going to help.

He caught a bag as she dropped it. She turned and stared at him in surprise. “Thank you,” she said, “You know, for someone so big, you’re very quiet.”

He smiled wryly. “Professional obligation, you might say.” She unlocked her door. He offered her the groceries. “Here.”

She nodded over her shoulder as she pushed the door open. “Just set it on the table over there. Thanks.”

He entered cautiously and followed her directions, setting the groceries on the simple glass tabletop. “Happy to help,” he said, standing there awkwardly in his Red Hood jacket, his helmet in the backpack over his shoulder. He should maybe try entering through a window next time. “I’ll be going.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, sitting the rest of her bags down.

He snorted. “I’m tired, I ache, and trust me when I say that things aren’t going the way I want.”

She shrugged. “Then no reason not to take a break.”

“Yeah. At the place I rent.”

She dropped those crystalline eyes and smiled sheepishly. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

Jason moved to let himself out, but stopped at the door. “Listen, Megan, I appreciate it. But you don’t know who I am, besides the fact I beat the shit out your stalker.”

“Because you cared. When no one else would. Listen, I’ve been here for six months and I’ve seen a lot of people simply not care when they should, in this building, in the street, everywhere. That’s not the world I’m from, even if people think it should be. It’s good to see someone else who might be from my world.”

He laughed. His shoulders started to twinge very badly, echoes of the agony rising up. “I’m not from your world.”

“You cared when no one else would. So you’re at least from somewhere close.” She patted a very cushy powder blue armchair. “So sit and let me be the one who gives a damn for somebody else today.”

Jason eyed the chair. It looked very comfortable. So, against his better judgement, he sat.

Something rustled and jingled from beneath the coffee table. Next thing he knew, a pair of soft brown doggy eyes were blinking up at him, a golden head resting heavily on his knee. 

Jason stared back. The bannered tail wagged cautiously. 

Megan laughed from the kitchen. “That’s Aeneas. He’s a big sweetheart, especially if he thinks you might give him food. And he thinks everyone might give him food. Don’t tell the building staff I have him here.”

Jason scratched experimentally behind the shaggy ears. The tail wagged more steadily. “He’s a pretty dog,” he said quietly. His most recent encounter with dogs had involved fighting with them for a place to sleep, a few weeks ago. Before that, attack dogs or fighting ring dogs, out in the callous world of mercenaries. Aeneas was clearly a very different animal. It was weird more than anything.

She came from her kitchen, a steaming mug in hand. “My dad gave him to me as a puppy, just before he deployed. Grandpa helped me train him. ” She slid the mug onto the table before sitting on her couch. Aeneas attempted to inspect it, but she swatted him gently on the nose. He sat back, looking hopeful. “Have some tea. I like it on a certain kind of rainy night, and it seems like you might be having one of those.”

Jason reached for the mug with more luck than the dog. He took a gentle sip. It reminded him of Alfred. He always used to bring Jason tea when he was having a rough time of it. Usually with a gentle lecture, though. “Thanks. I guess I am.”

“I really do mean thank you, by the way. I know that man didn’t look like much, but I’ve found that doesn’t mean anything in Gotham.”

“Oh, it does, it’s just different. Worse violence from the obvious ones.”

“I’ve heard.” She looked out her window. It had started raining in earnest, now. “I moved here after that happened. The firm’s old copyeditor refused to come back, apparently. Is that sort of thing gone now, with Batman?”

“Everyone keeps hoping it is.”

She looked back at him. “But you don’t think so.”

He shut his eyes and took another sip of the tea. “It never is.” When he opened his eyes, he sat the tea back on the table. “You’re a copyeditor? How do you afford this place? It’s pretty ritzy.”

“Oh.” She started scratching Aeneas’ back. He arched into it joyfully. “My Grandpa was pretty rich, as it turned out. After dad was KIA, he adopted me and put me in his will. He was one of those people who had more money than anyone guessed. I haven’t been as good at concealing it. I understand why he did, though, now.”

“Chester the stalker.”

“He was the photographer for some magazine about rich people. I did an interview. Last time I ever do that.”

“Smart move,” he said. It was nice to watch her fuss over the dog. He’d moved to her lap on the couch, flipped over, and was now getting a belly-rub, tongue lolling. It was just a happy thing to watch. 

And utterly alien.

“What about you, Jason?” she asked, “How do you afford to live here?”

“A sort-of roundabout inheritance.” He smiled to himself. “It’s taking some getting used to.”

“I thought you didn’t look like you belonged here.” She shook her head, looked away. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re just being honest. I thought the same thing when Dick took me up here. He’s my brother,” he said by way of explanation. It didn’t taste like a lie. 

Thunder cracked outside. He glanced at her clock in the kitchen. “I should go get some sleep,” he said, “I think it’s going to be a long few days.” The overall ache racked his body again as he stood. “Definitely a painful few days.”

She nodded and shoved the happy dog away to open the door for him. “Feel free to stop by if you’re ever having one of those nights again, okay?”

He shouldn’t. “I may take you up on that.”

She nodded, smiling in a way that warmed his hurting body all over. “Enjoy your rest.”

He had to stop and lean against her door a moment after she closed it. Not just because of the pain.

It was going to be a nightmare sort of night, he knew it. But hopefully some of this silliness worked its way in there untouched.

“An answered prayer this once would be nice,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nerve and muscle damage in Jason's shoulders has its origin in the way we see him hanging in the hallucination at the movie studios, during the branding scene. That particular form of torture results in severe issues in the upper body; Sen. John McCain, for instance, endured something similar as a POW and has not been able to raise his arms above shoulder level since. Because he does what he does, Jason doesn't suffer to the same degree, but he does feel the damage.


	4. Chapter 4

Jason found that, after the first wake-up-screaming nightmare, he’d dreamed about tea, an ash blonde woman, and a happy dog the rest of the night.

He was happy about the change, but there was no way in hell he was revealing that to the others meeting in the clocktower.

“Scarecrow and Mad Hatter are the two big ones who got out,” Barb was saying, “On top of the Powers and Fuerza arms smuggling we’re still fighting.”

“The fear toxin links them, though,” Tim added from his place at her shoulder, “At least with Scarecrow.”

“Except Scarecrow couldn’t have made it. He’s been in solitary. They haven’t let him have anything, and he’s under pretty heavy guard.”

“So someone stole the formula,” Dick said. He was speaking over video link from some Blüdhaven rooftop. “Or he shared it out. It might have been years ago.”

“Then it should have reappeared sooner, somewhere. Scarecrow’s fear gas has been a known effective chemical weapon for a long time.”

Jason finished tweaking his helmet and walked over to take his own spot on the edge of Oracle’s screens. “I’ve got a strike against your theory, too, Dick. The van transporting the toxin headed to Arkham.”

“No one saw it leave,” Tim said, “So it probably took another way out. Boat, probably. Scarecrow sure as hell didn’t leave by land. We had the entrance gate locked down before the inmates got outside.”

“Maybe an accomplice?” Barb said, “He’s known to do it before.” There a long uncomfortable silence. “Though how he managed it in the state he’s in, I have no idea. The man apparently can’t see a shadow move with breaking down into screaming gibberish.”

“And the Hatter?”

“I’ve got a lead on him.” She pulled up a window, a missing person’s report for a sunny-looking college student named, of course, Alice. “She vanished the next morning, after leaving class, and there was evidently something wrong in one the clubs near University Street this morning. A bunch of people wandering around in a daze, hallucinating.”

“Nice when they make it obvious.” Tim scanned the report quickly. “I’ll take this one.”

Jason nodded. He’d rather not go to Wonderland—whatever Tetch would drag out of his mind there was going to be very bad. “I’ll take the regular—“

He was cut off as static came blazing across the speakers. Barb cursed and turned the volume down. Dick was shouting, but the broadcast was blocking out his audio.

“Arkham…Knight,” a familiar voice said, “I know…you are…listening. I…am…coming…for you. _Traitor_.”

The sound cut off and then Dick’s voice came across. “What the hell was that?”

“Scarecrow,” Jason said. He recognized the voice. It had been scratchy and strained, but he knew it.

He’d jumped to its call for two years.

Barb was working furiously at her keyboard. “He wasn’t broadcasting to us, specifically; just across all radio channels.” She flipped through windows faster than Jason could follow. “Here. Got a probable origin point.”

Jason took a look at the map. The point she’d highlighted sat along one of the emptier chunks of coastline, all rock and gulls. “What’s there?”

“Defunct post-war bunker. It has a radio tower, but it shouldn’t be anything close to operational.”

He fitted his helmet on. The video on-off marker shown bright and new on his HUD. “Shouldn’t. Yeah, whatever.” He checked the mags in his pistols and went over the locations of his reloads. “You run off to Wonderland, Robin. I’ve got Scarecrow.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Tim asked as he drew his hood up.

“I’d rather be the one coming for him than the other way around.” He sent his grappling hook shooting through the roof entrance. “At least I’ll probably be able to break his chemistry set.”

* * *

The bunker was appropriately creepy in the stormy weather. The old concrete structure had taken on a slight yellow tint, like old bone, with the distant city lights. The towering antenna gave a metallic keening in the growing wind, and behind it all was the hard rushing smack of waves upon the rocky coast.

Jason couldn’t see any signs of activity from where he’d parked the black motorcycle down the street a ways. It was a small bike, nothing more than a heavily modified crotch-rocket from Wayne Enterprises R and D, but on this lonely stretch of road it stood out. There wasn’t anyone or anything else. The worsening storm and gathering dark had driven even the seagulls to their roosts.

He sighed and threw the kickstand down. Well, if some brat came and stole the bike, he was pretty sure it had a self-destruct function.

He moved along the asphalt around the bunker, looking for any signs of use. The place really was in the middle of nowhere; there weren’t even broken beer bottles or old needles, like you found in most abandoned structures around the city.

That, he noted, was a sign of use, in its way. No place in Gotham was that creepy on its own.

He pressed an ear against the heavy old metal door. He could feel it vibrating dimly. There were vague clanks and thumps he wouldn’t have picked up without the helmet.

Well, they covered their tracks well, whoever they were. Crane wasn’t inclined to do that on his own, especially not these days.

Jason called Oracle. “Any other way into this place besides the front door?” he asked.

“Not that I can find, sorry.”

He sighed and pulled out one of his pistols. “Of course not.” He weighed his options. The door wasn’t going to open silently from the look of it. While the facility probably extended underground, he doubted it was very big even then. Individual rooms and hallways would be tiny.

Nothing for it. He kicked the door open, ignoring the nasty howl of his hip flexor.

There was no reaction, just emptiness. The concrete hallways was short, and dim—but the few unbroken fluorescent lights shone confidently. It reeked of salt-stained concrete and vermin.

And the harsh scent of a laboratory overlaying it all.

Jason moved forward carefully, slipping into the next few rooms carefully. They were all empty, though a few showed signs of recent life, like bunks, snack bar wrappers, and books. He picked one up. _The Diary of Emille_. Not a classic or even popular, near as Jason knew it, flipping it around to read the summary. Teenage self-pitying fluff. He threw it back on the bunk in disgust.

Maybe this was just a haven for runaways. That chemical scent was growing stronger, though.

He heard footsteps in the next room. He waited until they passed the doorway and moved into it, making sure to keep the hooded ragged figure in his sights.

Scarecrow. Jason grinned behind his mask. Too easy.

Scarecrow continued working at his table. The entire room was larger than the rest, with several doorways leading into it, and full of assorted tables with chemistry equipment set up on them. Nothing looked like completed toxin, yet.

“You wanted to see me, Crane?”

The man turned around quickly, backing against his table and staring at Jason with frightened eyes. “No. No. Go away!”

Jason snorted and took a couple steps forward, gun still trained on the villain. “You wanted to see me, you said. Not working out like you planned?”

He cocked his twisted head. “Arkham…Knight?”

“Formerly.”

“ _You_!” The fear fell back in those toxic eyes, and rage came to the forefront. Jason titled back in spite of himself. Crane made a small lunging motion. He was still shaking. “You…ruined…everything!”

He couldn’t seem to get more than a couple syllables out at once. The man was barely functional. He’d brought it on himself.

Jason had helped. He scowled behind his mask. “I did,” he said, “And I’m going to ruin this, too.” He tightened his finger on the trigger.

“Help!” Scarecrow keened, “Help me!”

Someone slammed into Jason from the side, dragging him to the ground. He kept hold of his pistol, though, and grabbed the wriggling form, catching it in a headlock.

A kid, a teenager, thrashed as Jason pressed the muzzle of his weapon to his head. “An accomplice,” he growled. Score one for Barb. “You stupid brat.”

“No,” a female voice said. It was hollow and young at once in a way that made the hairs on the back of Jason’s neck rise up. “Merely answering a call.”

The girl walked into the room serenely from a door Jason couldn’t see. She was dressed in a pink shirt and blue jeans, a bubblegum creature, a sunshine blonde. She came over to Scarecrow and took his shaking hand, stroking it. He didn’t have the syringes anymore. “Hush, lord. Hush. We are here.”

Jason shifted his head to see a good ten other teenagers in the surrounding doorways. “What the hell?”

“Indeed,” the girl said, turning to face Jason. There was something in her eyes that seemed to strip them of color. It was rare that Jason found things instinctually disturbing anymore, but that did it. “You may call me Alecto.”

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked, unable to help himself. These kids all had newer clothes, and they looked pretty clean. Not what you found prowling places like this.

Not what you found stroking Scarecrow’s hand.

She smiled and it was full of the thing in her eyes. “We are a union of the bullied and the bullies; all those who recognize the power of fear.”

“So you broke Scarecrow out.”

“It was complicated, but we remember that he made the whole city run. We want power like that, and he is the lord and master of it.” She kept stroking the gloved hand. “ _Our_ lord and master.”

The kid in Jason’s hold jerked, throwing himself away. Jason let him go. He could crush all these stupid children no problem, but something didn’t feel right. They were leaving room for something.

“Bring…it,” Scarecrow mumbled.

Alright, time to make a move. Jason threw himself forward at Crane, but was intercepted by one of the boys from the wall. They went tumbling to the ground. Jason lifted the kid by his shoulders and slammed his head into the concrete floor hard enough to knock him out.

No time for a quick kill shot, because the rest mobbed him frantically.

Jason kicked and punched and headbutted his way through. He had to get the bastard, end this…

Scarecrow, Alecto, and most of the kids were gone. He could hear them running down one of the tunnels.

One of the kids clung at his leg; he kicked her violently away and set off after them, running down the echoing dingy tunnels, following as they sloped underground.

The air began to move further down, and a fresh sea breeze filled the passage. There was an exit through the cliffs, then, and close. That was where they were headed, had to be, and these crazy brats probably had an escape waiting.

He heard Scarecrow start screaming at something ahead, the girl’s eerie voice trying to calm him, and redoubled his sprint.

He caught a glimpse of the group, but one—a big one, one of those dumb lugs you met on every football team— turned and threw a barnstormer, forcing Jason to dodge.

As he drew himself back up, he saw that Scarecrow and his little club had vanished. They couldn’t have gotten far, but he had this problem to deal with.

The boy had assumed a boxer’s stance, throwing jabs at Jason in the way only a well-trained athlete could. It wasn’t hard to dodge, when you weren’t playing by the rules.

Jason ducked. “Go home, kid,” he warned.

A hook, easily sidestepped. Credit where credit was due; someone with less practice would be an easy target in the narrow hallway. “No.”

The answer made Jason feel suddenly tired. “I tried.” He drew back a few steps, pulled his gun, and put a round through the boxer’s head.

He walked over the body. He should have asked why, or tried to talk the kid down, but what was the point? The end would have been the same. They’d gone through all this trouble to break Crane out.

‘A Union of the bullies and the bullied; all those who recognize the power of fear.’

The stupid book he’d found made sense, now, or as much as it was going to.

As he’d guessed, when he reached the opening in the cliff, the only sign of them was the distant hum of a motorboat somewhere out in the dark.

He stared out at the sea, and at the edge of glowing Gotham that could be seen from here, close and still busy in the night. This wasn’t going to be easy.

He should have just shot the bastard on sight.


	5. Chapter 5

Jason realized he’d been staring at his wall for thirty minutes.

He didn’t want to give words to the thoughts bouncing around inside his head. He could hear the showerhead dripping in a terrible rhythm ( _drip-drip, drip-drip, drip-drip_ ) that reminded him of darkness and pain.

Enough. He rolled out of the stupid comfortable bed and threw open the stupid walk-in closet. He hadn’t touched any of the stupid clothes Barb had bought him yet, but…

The other night, during the storm, with the tea and the dog and the pleasant smelling air, had been really nice.

He dragged on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. Barb had thoughtfully supplied him with several hooded jackets, and he grabbed a plain black one. For all its simplicity, he was pretty sure it was from a designer store downtown. There were some colors in the closet, but he wasn’t up to that yet.

Shoving his feet inside new sneakers—how did she know his shoe size?—he looked in a mirror, running a hand through his hand through his drying hair. He probably needed a haircut. He was starting to look like a ragged version of Dick.

He traced the brand for only a moment before turning away sharply and heading out the door.

It was Saturday morning, so he headed straight for Megan’s door with some faith that she was in. He didn’t even bother to think about it. He just knocked.

The time it took for her to answer the door seemed to last forever. He rocked back in forth on his heels, feeling the confines of the new shoes.

Megan opened the door with a smile. “Jason, hey! What brings you here?”

He stared down at her, blanking out on an answer for a minute. “Do you want to see more people from your world?” he said, the words and the idea taking form suddenly.

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

By this time, Aeneas had recognized the voice of someone he knew and came padding over to stick his head under Jason’s hand. Jason obliged and began scratching his ears. “There’s good people in this city.” He gave a small wry smile. “Better than me, honestly. I was thinking it would do me some good to visit them. I thought it might help you out, too.” He shrugged.

“Let me get my jacket. And put _this_ inside.” She grabbed Aeneas by the collar and dragged him back inside. He looked at Jason with pleading puppy eyes.

Jason smiled honestly and offered no sympathy to the dog. “No problem at all.”

* * *

He liked looking at Megan. Especially after what he’d seen in the bunker last night. She wasn’t a very big person, but she moved with the sane assurance of someone comfortable in their own skin. She seemed fine-boned to him, dancer-like, walking into the world with an earnest grace.

“Where are we headed?”

The question pulled Jason from his reverie. “A sort of thrift store.” He wasn’t about to take her to the soup kitchens. They’d fed him for months, and he was grateful for it, but a soup kitchen in Gotham wasn’t so different from Arkham when it came to sanity level.

This damn city…he shook himself out of it and continued. “It’s run by an order of nuns called Little Sisters of Mercy. They do a lot of charity work in Gotham.”

Her brow furrowed. “I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

“They’re too busy to do much PR.” They walked in silence for a little while. Jason felt like fidgeting, words bubbling up in his mind too furiously to sort through. He picked a few at random. “Your dad was a soldier?”

She nodded, her fine gray eyes looking straight ahead. “An infantry officer, a very good one. He raised me on his own.”

“Oh.” Her mom must have died when she was young. Jason knew the feeling, though it probably wasn’t an overdose in her case. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

“It wasn’t that sort of tragedy. She left when I was very little and dad was deployed. It…happens. I don’t remember her and I’ve never met her. When dad was gone, grandma and grandpa raised me. Grandma passed away not long before dad…well, yeah, grandpa was on his own with me until he joined them.”

“Sorry,” Jason said, feeling like an asshole. He hadn’t meant to turn this into _that_.

She shook her head and finally looked at him, smiling, thank God. “You asked a personal question. I get one now.”

He turned his face into the side of his hood. She hadn’t commented on the brand, hadn’t even let her eyes linger on it, but it was his most distinguishing feature, and anyone with a brain had to know there was a story behind it.

“What’s the best bar in town?”

He had to stop to process that. She laughed and kept walking. He hastened to catch up. “ _That’s_ a personal question?”

“Yes. You can tell a lot about a man by where he drinks.” That had the feel of someone’s proverb. “I’ve been here six months and I don’t know of a good place to go.”

He didn’t either, honestly. “I’m not one for going out,” he told her, “I’ll ask around.” What good was an information broker if she couldn’t give you the name of a good bar?

“Thanks.” She sobered. “I won’t dig, I promise.”

He feel silent and a half step-behind, watching her curiously. Was he that obvious?

“Is this the place?” she asked, stopping to look at a door with a yellowed sign above reading ‘Little Sisters of Mercy Clothing, Trinkets, and Other Knick-Knacks’. It must have been there for at least fifty years.

“Yeah.” He led her in. It wasn’t a big place, but it was meticulously organized, racks of donated clothes organized by type, shelves of items grouped according to function. “You donate, not purchase, and it’s up to you how much. If it weren’t for the big donations to the Sisters, this place would be long gone.”

Megan nodded, looking the place over. “It’s pretty well stocked.”

“A lot of stuff came from out of state after last Halloween.”

As he spoke, a rustling came from the curtain behind the cash register. “Mr. Todd!” a trilling voice called. A tall, plump woman in a habit came hurrying over. “After you got in touch with your family I wasn’t sure we’d ever see you again!”

He smiled, gripping a small wad of cash in his pocket. “I wanted to show Megan here your store, Sister Ann. She’s pretty new to Gotham and she’s seen has been…”

“Say no more. My dear, not everyone is like that here. Have faith.”

The Sister’s energy had left Megan blinking in bewilderment. Jason hid a grin in his jacket’s hood. Sister Ann could be like that. He owed the woman his survival over the winter, so he knew it well. “I’m beginning to see it,” the blonde answered, “Thanks to Jason.”

He stared at her, in his turn to be confused. The nun gave him a benevolently sly look. “He cleans up well, we’ve always said so,” she said, chuckling, “Well, please, have a look at our wares.” She gestured around grandly. “All men need something, and generosity should not be limited to only the most obviously suffering.”

“Sister,” Jason said, before she could go breezing off to her next task, “Here.” He took the cash out of his pocket and handed it to her.

She accepted it gracefully. “Thank you so much.” She gave him that saint’s smile. “You are a good man, Jason Todd.”

A good man who’d blown a teenagers’ brain out the night before.

The teenager had been a lunatic working for a supervillain who had also been trying to kill him. Nonetheless, it still left a part of Jason tired. “I’m just…trying.”

The nun gave him a brief kiss on his unbranded cheek. He jumped, not expecting the contact. “That’s all anyone can do,” she told him, sweeping off to the back room, cash held like a baby bird in her hands, “And most people don’t even really bother.”

He turned to see Megan stifling a giggle. “What?”

“To look at you, the way you walk and the way you snarl—just like that—no one would imagine you getting kissed on the cheek by a nun.”

“The way you look, no one would imagine you getting drooled on by large dog.” That was a very bad rebuttal.

“As opposed to getting drooled on by what?” He really hoped he managed to control his blush. He doubted it though, because she shook her head with a smile and headed over to look at the clothing racks. “How do you know her, anyway? Or this place?”

“I was on the streets up until you saw me standing at the elevator with my brother.”

She stopped picking through jackets. “Really?” Her eyes had tightened with shock and sympathy.

“It was my choice, a better one than I had been making. Or…had to make.” He wasn’t sure. Hindsight was vivid but not much had become any clearer. His life looked like an avalanche, a series of consequences kicked off by…by events.

He steeled himself for more probing questions.

There was a long silence. She moved around him, squeezing his stilled hand lightly as she passed. “I won’t dig, Jason. I understand there’s…stuff,” she told him, “Come on. There’s jewelry here!”

He turned to follow her. “It’s all ugly,” he warned.

She was already at the old table serving a jewelry department. It was strewn with aging rhinestones and gold-plating, the sort of costume junk found in someone’s grandmother’s house. Megan laughed as she picked through it. “Just like the clearance racks at Christmas…here, though, this isn’t bad.”

Jason eyed the bracelet she held up. A red stone disk sat in the midst of an elaborate twist of faded strings. They might have been white once, but time and dirt had made them gray.

Red Hood’s colors.

Sometimes, in the past few weeks, his life felt like a movie, full of weird twists and happy accidents. It was like it had been in the early days with Bruce. He wondered a bit when it would end, and in what horror, but not too much.

These moments were too nice to waste that way.

“Do you want it?” he asked, taking it and clasping it on her slim wrist. He fiddled with it a moment until it seemed to sit right, more elegant than you’d think for a cheap bit of costume jewelry.

“I don’t need to take anything from this place.” Her voice was quiet. “Other people could use it.”

“I think most of the jewelry here was donated when this place opened. You don’t need to feel bad, and I’ll pay, unlike most of the people who come here.”

“The people who come here really don’t pay much, do they?”

“They act like they’re stealing most of the time.” Jason rubbed a circle along her wrist, thinking back. “They aren’t, of course, but I think it helps them think they are. No one else gets screwed over in the process, so that’s a win. Some of it gets used, especially in winter. Some of it gets sold for drug or booze money.”

He looked up from her wrist to see her looking sadly at the bracelet. “It’s not a happy city, Gotham, and you don’t act like it ever really gets better. I’m not surprised maybe that no one would help me.” She blinked and looked him in the eye. “I’m surprised you did. That the women who run this place help people.”

“It gets better and it gets worse,” Jason said, “I guess we all just fight the good fight on the hope that it will matter at least once, even if we never know it.” He was surprised at those words, coming out of his mouth.

He’d just wrapped his head around Bruce a bit better for a moment.

A cheerful alarm went off suddenly. Megan grinned sheepishly and reached into her pocket to turn it off on her phone. “Ah. Sorry. I need to take Aeneas for a walk.”

He nodded and released her arm. “Here, I’ll pay.” As he pulled out twenty bucks—more than the old bracelet was worth by a long shot—more words shot out of his mouth. “Mind if I join you?”

She grinned like every warm, blessed thing. “Not at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, so sappy!


	6. Chapter 6

No sign of Scarecrow or his minions, not tonight. Just the usual attempted muggings, assaults, and robberies.

Jason sighed and cracked his neck as he took a break on the roof of the GCPD. After he’d gone dog-walking with Megan, he’d had Barbara send him a list of Scarecrow’s known hideouts, and gone out in civilians to have a look, adding a few places that he knew of into the mix. All of them were gone or utterly abandoned.

Crane would pop up, they always did, either tonight or tomorrow or six months from now. The idea of just letting him slink away and plot, though, didn’t settle well with Jason. There was no crisis to distract him from the hunt.

Besides, it felt like enabling the bastard all over again.

He saw Robin coming in, probably for a break of his own. GCPD’s citadel was a good vantage point and pretty much always secure. The replacement landed on the rooftop less gracefully than normal. He favored his right leg as he walked over.

“Rough night on the town?” Jason asked, lounging irreverently against the ruins of the Bat-signal.

“Little bit,” Tim said, “No luck with Scarecrow, then?”

He shook his head. “The Hatter?”

“ _He_ ’s in custody. The problems he made aren’t, not yet.”

“Hypnosis can be a bitch. What’d he send them after, Alice?””

“And the components of a very fancy tea party.” He leaned against a wall, looking out at the city. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I could figure out who exactly he planted the suggestions in. He was running a sort of secret ‘live your fantasy’ club. No records of who underwent his treatment and the eyewitnesses are mostly useless. So the goal is to catch them in the act.”

“That’s better luck than I’m having.”

“He’ll show up, especially if he wants revenge.”

“I’d rather get the jump on him.”

They were quiet for a long time. The roof might be safe, might be a good vantage point, but it felt like a place of ghosts now. The Bat-signal’s wreckage seemed to poke spitefully through Jason’s jacket.

“Why did you betray him?” Tim asked, standing straight up to look at him, “Hell, why did you even work with him? You know what he is, what he does to people.”

After a day of normal personal conversations with Megan, the questions hit him like icewater.

“It…didn’t matter.” He suddenly felt suffocated by his helmet. He slid the faceplate up and pulled the whole thing off. “Do you want me to say I didn’t realize the extent? _I didn’t care_. You don’t know what it’s like…” He felt it rush on him, then, the blackness that hollowed him out and filled him at once, the hate, the pain, insensible and roiling, demanding with hot fury, seeping both into and from the cracks in his soul, widening them…and behind it all the _memory_ of something far worse. “I hated Bruce so much. It was all there was. Every word, every action was done so I could kill him.”

Tim was silent. Jason hated that he could hear his voice breaking as he spoke. “It was all so…wrong. But not then. Then, it was all there was.”

“You didn’t go through with it.” Tim said it so quietly it was almost lost in the wind.

Jason sat up and hauled himself to his feet. “No.”

“No one else ever asks, but I’m tired and hurting and I’ll do it. _Why_?”

“I had him cornered, once, you know that? Really got him. We played cat-and-mouse—mouse got the cat, though. He almost smashed my face in.” He rolled his helmet between his hands. “Didn’t. I got one of my pistols and could have shot him right then. Ended it.” He snorted, shutting his eyes. “He just held his hand out to me and said ‘we can fix this’. He’d spent the entire time telling me what I believed wasn’t true— Barbara had told me it wasn’t true— but it was that _hand_ that made me realize he was right. And I had done all these things, helped this madman get his way, all of it just so I could hurt someone who had only ever cared about me.”

“So that’s why you want to get the jump on Scarecrow.”

Jason heaved a sigh and put this helmet back on. “That, and he’s the _bad guy_. You’re the one waiting for your villain to act, not me. I’ve been on the hunt.”

The Robin bristled. Too easy. “I told you there’s no way to—”

“Come on. Would Batman take that kind of answer?”

His answer—probably a curse word or five—was lost to the night as Jason leapt of the roof, grappling away to another. Enough of a break. The night was young yet.

He dropped down an alleyway to scare couple thugs off of whatever they were plotting and stood in the shadows for a moment, planning his next move for the night. A couple police reports flashed on his HUD, one of which was definitely one of Tim’s problems. The other two were car chases— idiot kids joyriding and one of the local gunrunners, both about to lose painfully.

The GCPD had gotten better equipment, that was for sure.

Still nothing pointing towards Scarecrow. He didn’t like it.

Maybe it was done already. Maybe the man’s fragile mind had snapped beyond functionality out here in the dirty, shadowed world.

He doubted it and walked out towards the sidewalk.

“Jason Todd.” He turned towards the feminine voice, one hand ready to draw his gun.

The girl who called herself Alecto smiled at him, moving to herd him into the alley. He bristled at the attempt. This kid, about half his size and unarmed by the looks of her, was trying to get the better of him? “Looks like you’ve made a mistake,” he said, drawing his pistol and aiming it at her head.

She simply stared down the barrel, unimpressed. “You don’t have the upper hand here.” A green laser dot appeared on Jason’s arm and zipped to his head. He activated his optics and saw the sniper on the rooftop above, well-positioned and unlikely to be hit by a pistol shot. “Aim somewhere else.”

Slowly, unwillingly, Jason did. There were hills to die on, times to make the sacrifice. Dealing with this Alecto wasn’t one of them. “Where’s Scarecrow?” he demanded.

“Not ‘how do I know that name’?”

Jason shrugged. “He told you.” He was surprised Crane remembered it; he’d only told him once, early in their acquaintance when their mutual purpose was being established. It hadn’t meant anything to the supervillain and he hadn’t cared about it, either. Jonathan Crane cared about very little when it came down to it. He just wanted to see what fear did to people. “What difference does it make? I’m dead. There’s nothing that name can tell you.”

“No, there isn’t. I’d hoped it would stir some fear in you, but that’s not why you wear a mask and another name, is it?” She cocked her head, brow furrowing, genuinely confused. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you screaming soon enough.”

He gave a short bitter laugh. “ _You_ don’t have it in you, trust me.”

She shook her head and smiled sweetly. It reminded him of one of Megan’s expressions, except all hollowed out and so nothing like it. “You’re not so different from me, you know,” she cooed, “He could give you what you wanted, so you served him, as I do.”

Jason snarled beneath his mask. ‘ _Yes’_ , Crane had said, in the shadowed room, ‘ _yes, I can help you kill Batman. It will set the whole world afire with fear.’_ Then he laughed, cold and hysterical at once. Jason had felt lighting catch in his veins like the sick dark shadow of hope.

“It wasn’t my best idea,” Jason said darkly, “It won’t be yours.”

“Is that regret? That’s the beginning of fear. Oh, you will _scream_ for us.”

Jason really, really wanted to shoot her. But that sniper hadn’t moved and she knew where her boss was. “Where’s Scarecrow?”

She giggled and fluttered her eyes. “That would be telling. This is your one offer for repentance.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’re so like us, though! He can give you what you want. He _did_. Don’t you owe him?”

What he’d wanted…it had been, too, like he told Tim. The only thing he wanted.

But not anymore. He didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want Bruce to be dead. “Go to hell,” he said, drawing his other pistol.

He fired at the sniper and hit the ground, rolling to the side of the alley. Alecto took off running. The sniper fired again, twice, keeping Jason from following where she went.

Stupid bastard. Jason fired off his grappling hook at the sniper’s rooftop and rushed forward, faster than the sniper seemed to be able to track. Stupid, _amateur_ bastard.

His boots hit the sniper right on, one smashing into his face. There was a small crunch with the impact and they went rolling. Jason sprang to his feet and kicked the curled form away from the rifle.

He placed one boot on the guy’s chest. He was another kid, high school age, skinny and dressed in new dark clothing. Jason shifted his other foot and heard a glassy crunch. He looked down. A pair of glasses, crushed into uselessness. This kid was the opposite of the jock he’d shot in the bunker, a textbook teenage nerd.

The kid looked up at Jason with an empty hate, its powerlessness not helped by his blooming black eye. Jason leaned forward. “Where’s Scarecrow?” he demanded.

The pale fingers scrabbled at his boot.

“Where?” Jason asked again, reaching down to drag the kid up by his collar.

“I don’t know,” he squawked. The pain, fear, and emptiness in his voice were honest.

Jason threw him down hard in frustration. He’d need to go dump that rifle at GCPD; it looked like one of the Powers milspec models that had been on the streets.

He stared down at the idiot teenager for an instant. Like Alecto, he seemed hollow inside, not right. Wanting to master the power of fear, wasn’t that what they were all about? That’s what they wanted from Scarecrow.

“I’m not like you _anymore_ ,” Jason told the kid, for lack of a better audience, drawing a pistol, “What I wanted isn’t what I want _anymore_.” He put the muzzle to the kid’s temple. The teen cringed, shivering and curling tightly into himself. “It wasn’t the right thing to want. It sent me to places I shouldn’t have gone. Where no one should go.”

He’d been cracked open, and that let the shadow in, and he’d let it turn him into something like the empty child he had at gunpoint. He wouldn’t let that become all he was. He’d find a way to fix it for real, this time.

He pulled the pistol away and slammed the muzzle across the kid’s face instead, laying him out cold.

It probably wouldn’t help anything, but the GCPD needed to know about these…fanatics, and Jason didn’t really want to become buddy-buddy with them. They’d probably dump the kid in Arkham, where he would become an even worse person, and eventually get out, and they’d be here again, and then Jason would have to shoot him dead.

He gathered the rifle and the former sniper. He was very light for his height and age; the bullied part of the union.

Next time, he’d get Scarecrow.


	7. Chapter 7

The scream was what made Jason change direction, breaking from the route to the condo window to the small dead end alley by the building.

He hit the edge of a rooftop hard, feeling it in his knees as he crouched to look at the scene.

Megan was being backed towards the dead end by a pair of dark-clad thugs.

Jason didn’t need to see anymore he leapt down, staggering as the night’s running and jumping continued to catch up with him.

“Go away,” Megan ordered, her voice shaking but firm. She’d stopped, but the thugs hadn’t. She was standing with her legs braced, her hands extended in front of her…she had a gun, didn’t she? Atta girl.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one. He could see the gleam of the thugs’ weapons in the dim streetlights.

Jason drew his pistols as he moved forward, quietly.

Megan fired, the shot cracking sharply in the narrow confines of the alleyway. One of the bastards dropped his gun and started cursing.

He lunged at Megan at the same time as Jason did, a knife flashing out to hit her in the leg. Jason kicked him away and Megan fired again. The man dropped with a gurgling scream.

Megan staggered, stumbling against Jason. She jumped and stared at him with frightened eyes, before her legs gave out and she fell into his chest.

“It’s okay,” he told her, hoping she recognized his voice through the helmet, and kept his eyes on the other thug, who was staring at him with fear and anger.

Jason snarled and pulled the trigger. The man’s head turned to a gory mist.

Megan was trembling. He holstered his pistols and gently gripped her arms. “Megan,” he said, “It’s okay, they’re gone.”

She shook worse for minute, then reached for his mask. “Jason?” she asked, unsure.

“Yeah.”

She shut her eyes and nodded, her legs beginning to give out. Jason made sure she sat gently rather than drop, taking care to make sure her wound didn’t touch the trash-ridden asphalt. He probed at it gently. It wasn’t too deep, but it bleed freely and needed to be bandaged.

The smell of her blood was like a cloud around him and it set something strange inside him roaring.

The thug she’d shot was still gurgling, still alive.

“Wait here,” he told her, getting another nod. He hated to leave her shivering, hurt, on the ground, but this…he needed to _end_ this son of a bitch.

He rose, walking over to the injured man. He’d die eventually from the look and sound of things; Megan had given him what sounded like a sucking chest wound.

Best to hurry things along then. Jason stood over him, looking down with zero…anything, just the scent of Megan’s blood and the roaring rage.

He was fresh faced guy, and his dark jacket looked brand new. Jason looked at the dead one. Exact same jacket.

That set something off in his brain, but it wasn’t important right now. Megan was sitting on the ground, bleeding, behind him.

He fired two shots into the man’s face, splattering himself with blood and leaving behind a mess of meat and bone on the pavement before walking back to Megan.

She stared at the blood for a moment as he crouched beside her. “Police,” she muttered hazily.

He shook his head, pushing his hood back and taking off his helmet, tucking it awkwardly into an inside jacket pocket. “Later.” Maybe.

She grimaced and tried to pull herself up, getting ready to rise. Jason carefully slid his arms under her legs and back and lifted her up slowly. The wound wouldn’t cripple her, but he didn’t want her walking on it, especially not while she was still shaking like this.

“Let’s get you patched up.” He made sure her injury was tucked to his chest and headed for the front door, opting for the elevator this time. Thankfully no one manned the front desk at this hour.

Megan gave a vague murmur as he passed the turn to her place and headed for the one he rented. He shook his head as he managed to unlock the door with one hand, still holding her. Whatever first aid kit she had was definitely beat out by his own.

He sat her down on the couch and dragged his box out from its place by the armrest. “That’s a lot of bandages,” she commented as he dug up what he needed.

He cut her sweatpants away from her wound and began to gently pick away loose threads from it. There was more than enough street light from behind the window blinds for _him_ to work with. The value of experience. “It’s a useful thing to have.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He was glad to have the hydrogen peroxide this time, because otherwise he was going to have hunt down a bottle of liquor and vodka stung really, really badly. “This is going to hurt,” he warned, pouring the liquid on the cut. She hissed as it burned. He wrapped a bandage around it and moved to sit on the couch so he could put pressure on it. “The bleeding should stop soon,” he said, “What happened?”

She smiled bitterly. “It was stupid.” He waited, eyes on where he held the dressing down on her leg. “I was outside taking trash out. I’ve done it before all the time without anything happening.”

“Taking trash out yourself? in this building?”

“Dog trash. I don’t trust the staff not to pick up on it.”

He shook his head and looked back up at her, wanting to laugh. He could feel his own tension ebbing away now that the scum were dead and her cut was bandaged, but exhaustion and his aches were moving to take its place. “If it can wait, I’ll do it, Megan. Hell, if it _can’t_ wait. Don’t risk your life throwing out dog shit.”

“I thought this was the safe part of town.”

“It’s Gotham.”

Megan closed her eyes. “Thank you again, Jason.”

He nodded. “Just doing what I do,” he told her, shifting so he could hold down the pressure dressing better, “That was a good shot.”

The grey eyes opened again. The vague light from the behind the blinds made them seem luminous. Her pupils were still adrenaline-dilated. “Flattery,” she breathed.

“I meant the second one.” He lifted his hand to cradle her jaw. “You’re brave as hell, you know that?” Leaning forward, he gently pressed his lips to hers, just a brush of a kiss.

As he drew back, he wondered just where that had come from. What the hell had he been—

She smiled at him, reaching out to drag him in for a deeper kiss.

He groaned into it, unable to help himself, and pulled back to rest his forehead on hers. “I…” Hadn’t done that in a long, long time.

She shook her head gently and they were still.

* * *

“A bar? Why?”

Jason sighed into the phone and glared at the lobby door. “Barbara.”

“Fine, fine. About a block from your place, there’s an Irish pub called The Happy Hound.”

“Thanks.”

“Everything okay?” She paused. “The police found a couple of…”

“There was a problem. I fixed it.”

“Right. That’s…you, always…fixing things.”

“They were bad, Barbara.”

“I know. Enjoy your day out, I guess?”

He smiled grimly. “Yeah, thanks.” He hung up and thrust the phone into a pocket. “Ready?” he asked Megan. She was sitting in one of the fancy lobby chairs, leafing through a magazine.

She smiled up at him, sending his heart skipping a beat. “Who was that?”

“My…little sister, I guess.”

“You guess?”

He helped her up. The cut left her limping, though he thought it was temporary. If it had been the others, he’d have told them to sit still and stitched it up, but he didn’t think she was up for it. He’d offered to take her to the hospital when they’d woken up this afternoon, but she’d said no. It would leave a scar, but her choice of destination was a place to get a drink, instead.

And a place for him to explain. She hadn’t asked, but he could see the questions in her eyes and he owed it to her at this point.

“My family is one of the things I want to talk about.”

She slid her arm into his after a moment’s hesitation. “This damn city…”

He snorted and walked her to the cab the front desk had called for them. “How’s your leg?” he asked after he’d given the driver the name of the bar.

“That’s the fiftieth time you’ve asked.”

“I care.”

She shook her head and stared out the window. “You do. Sorry, everything is just…it’s okay. The painkillers help.” She glanced at him with her usual humor. “A drink will help more.”

He grinned. “Bruce used to live by that. Stiches, painkillers, and scotch before bed.”

“Bruce… _Bruce Wayne_?” she asked, slightly strangled. He nodded and she sank into her seat, eyes back on the passing world.

Jason ran his hands through his hair. He’d woken up happily enough, passed out on his couch with Megan in his arms, nightmare free. It was when he looked over her cut that he realized he’d needed to explain things.

It had been nice while it lasted.

The cab pulled up to The Happy Hound and Jason paid before helping Megan out. She leaned on him gratefully. He’d have to take another look at her leg after this, no matter how it went. Maybe convince her to go to the hospital.

Inside, the bar had the dim coziness you’d expect in an Irish pub, especially in this part of town. It was too early for anyone but the most regular of regulars. Jason could see the staff making preparations for the dinner crowd. He was glad they’d beaten them.

The hostess sat them in a booth in the back, away from listening ears. Megan took charge and ordered them each some kind of red ale, smirking slightly as she did. Right, the color and him and why they were here…

Her smirk was infectious despite his better judgment and lightened the mood just enough to him to remember how normal people talked. “Was this what you had in mind when looking for a good bar?”

“It looks nice.” She flipped through the menu. “All-day breakfast, too. So that’s a good start.”

“But no approval from Megan Laurel yet?”

“No. A good bar is more than the sum of its parts.”

Jason grinned and the waitress arrived with their beer. It was good. He could feel it when the alcohol hit his blood. Tension always made it more noticeable...and pleasant. And useful here. “Do you want to get some food?”

“I’m good for now.”

“Right.” He spun an extra coaster around. It advertised Gotham Fun Fact Quiz Night in loud letters against the Gotham skyline, a Bat symbol in the sky. “Starting is hard.”

“It’s up to you if you want to. I just…I don’t want to dig, Jason, I keep telling you. I grew up around people who’ve seen things. I know that talking doesn’t always help, but this…”

“Is a lot, I know. It’s always been. And you need to know. That’s my choice.”

“Start easy, then, if you want to start. Start with your family.”

“That’s…not easy.” He took a deep breath and flipped the coaster over. A local craft beer called the Batbrew flashed in his face before he switched it around again. “Until I was fourteen, I think, I lived in the bad part of town. I never met my dad. My mom was an addict, and spent most of my life as a prostitute—until I turned eleven, then she died of an overdose.”

Her eyes widened. “You really don’t have to—“

He shook his head and pushed on. “Foster care from there, though that’s as corrupt as everything else in Gotham. I stole and conned for a living until I was fifteen—I think, I don’t know the year I was born. Then I...” He wanted to laugh at the memory because it had been a ridiculously stupid idea. “Batman caught me stealing the tires off the Batmobile.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It wasn’t a tank back then. It wasn’t really very hard.”

“Except for getting caught by the scariest vigilante ever born.”

“That was…bad.” In hindsight, not so much, but he knew he’d almost pissed himself, holding the tire iron in front of him as if it would be useful against a man who was known to clear out rooms full of heavily armed men with only his fists. “But he had me put the tires back on—I’d never done anything so quickly in my life—and then gave me the name of a little local community center. Said I’d find help there in the morning.”

“And you went?”

“You don’t really know what Batman was here, Megan, especially not where I lived, the way I lived.” He twirled the coaster around and held the Batbrew side out to her. “Now, he’s a weird part of city history, somewhere between hometown hero and a tabloid story. It hasn’t even been a year yet, too.” He put the coaster down. “Then…then, there, he was pretty much the Wrath of God. So I went. And help was there in the form of Bruce Wayne. He said a friend thought I could use a helping hand, that a kid so gifted and brave as me shouldn’t be stealing tires in the middle of the night. He took me in.” He went quiet and took a drink. That was the happy part, the beginning.

Megan took a sip, too, then her hand reached out to cover one of his.

Jason took a deep breath. “He told me who he was, and offered me the chance to be Robin. Dick—my brother, the one you saw me with, who used to be Robin— had left for Blüdhaven earlier that year, seventeen and living off a stipend from Bruce. I leapt on the chance.”

“You’re not Robin, now, though,” she said carefully.

“No. I wasn’t for very long.” He turned away. He hadn’t pulled his hood up, not for this. “You’ve heard of the Joker?”

“Yes.”

A name to her, a headline horror, especially since she hadn’t lived in Gotham while he lived. “He attacked an elementary school. The kids died. It was…” He looked past her, remembering. Tiny bodies, stitched together, blank dead eyes, the smell of death and butchery in the air. “I can’t even start.”

He looked back at her. She just nodded.

“I went to go hunt him down. Kill him. It didn’t work that way. He caught me.” His voice gave, fraying, shuddering. “For more than a year. He…he...” He ducked his head. “Tore me open, filled me with…” He’d had to find the words before, but all of them failed to give it the right name. “He broke me.”

“ _Jason_.”

He had a death grip on her hand. If he didn’t keep going, he wouldn’t finish. He’d get up and run right out the door. “After a point, it all went blank. Just pain and surrender and…I escaped. Or was let out.” He looked back up at her. “I thought Batman had decided to abandon me. He’d gotten a new Robin. Joker showed me. I hated Bruce so much. So I…I got out, and I figured out how to kill him. It was _my_ Militia who helped Scarecrow on Halloween. I helped him. So I could kill Bruce.”

“Did…did you?”

“No. The Joker had sent him a video of my death. He’d shot me.” He touched his chest, on his left side, much nearer his shoulder muscle than his heart. He still had the scar. “Bruce talked to me, when everything came to a head. I don’t know how to explain it so it doesn’t sound—“

“He wanted to help you.”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t have been enough, but it was.”

“Don’t underestimate that.” He looked back up at her. She reached forward with her free hand and laid it on his cheek, over the brand. He flinched only a little and didn’t move away. “That’s from the Joker, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She swallowed and nodded. “So you became Red Hood, force for good, after that night.”

He gave a small smile. “Hey, I did save Batman’s life, first. Since then…tried to pull things back together. Got in contact with Dick and Barbara—my siblings-by-choice.” He narrowed his eyes. “And her boyfriend.”

She reflected his smile back at him. “Not your pick for her, I assume.”

“No. And also my replacement.”

She blinked and took her hand from his cheek to take a drink. “You’re right. That is a lot.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Last night, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s a lot. It’s not more than I can take. Thank you for telling me, but you didn’t have to, especially if you’re trying to drive me off.” She turned away and sipped at her beer again. “If you want that, just tell me to go away.”

He blinked, wondering what kind of man would tell a story like that to get a girl to leave him alone.

Dick. Dick might do it.

He shook his head to clear it. “I wasn’t. I’m not normal. I’m going to keep doing this. Someone has to. And I’m not Batman. I’m not going to leave these scum to hurt more people. I kill the sons of bitches, Megan.”

“So did my dad.”

He thought about that. “I guess this really is a war he dragged us into.”

“Like you said, someone has to fight it.” She sat her drink down. “I understand the risk you go through, doing it, or I kind of do. It’s how I lost my dad.” She shut her eyes briefly, then opened them. “Damn it, Jason, you are a _hero_ and there aren’t very many of those in this city, or even the entire world.”

“I’m not really. I fucked up. I _am_ fucked up.”

“Okay, but that’s not all you are.”

He stared at her for a long time and then started grinning, moving to hold her small hand in both of his.

Megan Laurel, Jason Todd’s girl…the world wasn’t supposed to work this way.

The doors flew open suddenly and gang of teenagers came charging through. Before Jason could process the interruption enough to pull his pistol, their booth was surrounded.

“It’s about time we caught up to you,” little blonde Alecto said in her empty voice, a gun held to Megan’s temple.


	8. Chapter 8

“I’m not stupid enough to think that we can drag you to our Master,” Alecto continued, “But you will come to him to get her.”

Megan was stone still except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest, her hands clenched on the table in front of her.

“Let her go,” Jason growled.

“No.” He tensed to move. Alecto cocked the action on her too-large revolver. If she fired it, she would probably break her wrist. It wouldn’t matter. Megan would be dead. “We’re going to leave now.” She curled a delicate hand around Megan’s arm, the hot pink nails flashing in the bar’s yellowy light. “You know where to find us.”

Megan moved only when Alecto tugged hard, her eyes wide and locked on Jason. He held her gaze steadily, his own heart thundering in a kind of panic he didn’t know he could feel. “I’ll come for you,” he told her. He could hear the fear in his own voice and grew angrier still for it. “I’ll kill them all and I will come from you.”

She swallowed as Alecto pulled her through the crowd, gun still to her head, and nodded before the ranks of teen boys closed around her.

He heard the door close. The bar settled into silken except for the dim murmur of someone on the hone to the police from under the bar. The kids, Alecto’s little unlikely gang, didn’t move. They just stared at him with hungry hollow eyes.

Jason stood very slowly, rolling his shoulders and neck, sending his spine cracking. The couch last night hadn’t done his back any favors.

So help him, he’d curl around her again tonight, couch, chair, floor, whatever, and hold her safe.

“I don’t think your master will be very happy if I’m dead,” he said.

“He’ll only teach us more of fear if we kill you,” one of the boys said, his hair cut like some daydreaming guitar player’s.

Jason snorted and charged the kid who spoke. He grunted as Jason hit, too slow to do anything to counter the older man’s throw. As he hit the ground with a painful thud, the other dozen moved.

Jason snatched up a chair—no room to shoot, too many bystanders—and laid into two before it broke. Another, a tall one, tried to catch him in a headlock, but high school athletes are no match for battle-hardened warriors; Jason threw him off and smashed his head into a wall before decking another who tried to sneak up behind.

“Idiots,” he snarled at the rest as they circled, staying between him and the door, “All you’re doing is holding me up.”

They didn’t care and moved in piecemeal, too untrained and too uncertain.

Jason lashed out, left and right, kneeing one in the solar plexus before smashing him face first through a table, sending another spinning away unconscious with a punch. Kids, all of them, soft kids, unprepared kids, lambs to the slaughter for a villain’s vengeance and Jason’s mistakes.

By the time he was walking over the last still body—still breathing, worthless brat—Alecto was long gone. Jason didn’t even pause to make sure everyone else in the bar was alright. He had to save Megan.

He knew where to find them, Alecto had said. He thought about it as he pulled out his cell phone, moving swiftly towards the condo. He would need all his gear for this and the bike, too.

“Hi, Jason,” Barbara said after what felt like forever, “How’s that bar?”

“Scarecrow’s henchmen showed up. They kidnapped the woman I was with.”

It took her a moment to process that. Jason crossed against a signal. “To get back at you. Is she okay?”

“For now, I think. She’s bait. The bitch said that I knew where to find them…” It clicked into place. “That old bunker. That’s the only hideout we know of.” He cursed at himself mentally. “They probably just put out to sea and circled back around the other night.” If he had waited, this might never have happened.

“You don’t know that. I’ll call Tim and send him your way.”

“I’ve got it.” Scarecrow had pulled those insane kids into it, and now Megan. He wasn’t going to drag yet another person along. “This is my problem. I will fix it. I’ll save her.”

“Jason, you know how dangerous he is, even if he’s not coherent. He might be even worse now he’s jumping at shadows.”

He hated to give her that. “Give me two hours. Then you can call him off tonight’s hunt for hypnotized college students if somehow I haven’t ended this by then.”

“Alright.” From her tone, it wasn’t, but whatever. He shoved his way into his building and took the stairs up two at a time. “I’ll see if anything comes up on the net to help you out, okay? _Keep me updated_.”

“Sure,” he said, hanging up and throwing the door to his floor open, rushing to his own door

His hands were steady as he unlocked it.

Good. That meant he wouldn’t miss when he blew Alecto’s and Scarecrow’s heads off.

* * *

The place seemed as empty as when he last saw it, if not more so. Ragged cots, blankets, and several copies of that stupid book were scattered here and there, but randomly, as if thrown around and left to gather dust. He saw a rat scurry off the top of a cot. The sun had been setting as he entered, but inside, it was one of those buildings always caught in the dead of night.

Especially now that he had to find Megan. Intuition said this was the right place but as he delved deeper into the tunnels, past the ruins of Scarecrow’s lab, there wasn’t any evidence to back it up.

She had been terrified when Alecto grabbed her. This place would only make it worse, and Scarecrow…if Jason had made the wrong call, it would be worse.

But he hadn’t. That hint had been too obvious.

He slipped into the corridor he’d battled his way through. A door stood ajar in a shadowed alcove.

 _Here_. His heart thundered and the word pounded through his mind with it. _Here. Here._

He’d kill them all!

Pistols ready, Jason edged his way into the room.

Scarecrow leered from a plexiglass window. Jason knew what the room was instantly. He tried to turn to the door, but he heard it slam shut and heard Alecto cocking her pistol right behind his head.

He didn’t give her the dignity of turning to look at her, instead facing Scarecrow head on. “Where is she?” he demanded. It was a gas chamber, he knew it, but it wasn’t pumping yet and he needed to find Megan.

Crane chuckled and turned, gesturing to a seated figure half-hidden behind him: Megan, duct-taped and unconscious. A purple bruise extended from her temple into her disheveled ashen hair. “Excellent bait,” he said, sounding like himself. That wasn’t good. “Drop your weapons. Alecto will fire before you can disarm her. As you once knew—ack!“ he halted, stepping back an slashed at the air wildly for a moment. The attack stopped almost as soon as it began. He closed his eyes a moment before continuing. “I know your every move,” he wheezed.

Jason obediently dropped his pistols. Alecto jabbed him with her gun and he kicked them away. “Then act on it.”

“I shall,” he said, hitting something beyond Jason’s sight, “I shall.”

The hissing sound of fear gas being pumped into the room started.

His helmet wouldn’t do him much good, but it’d be better than nothing….which was what Alecto had.

She dropped her gun and ran for the window. “No! No, my Lord!”

Scarecrow glanced down at her as she scrabbled at the plexiglass. “You wanted to know the power of fear, my little fury. I’ll give you that gift. You shall know it intimately.” He looked back to Jason. “You damaged most of my lab before. This is the last of my supply. It will be a good use for it. I wondered for a long time what fear drove you, what the mighty Arkham Knight would look like as his strength and courage melted away. Now I shall learn, and have my revenge. A very good use, indeed.”

“Go to hell,” Jason snarled, before the full effects consumed him.

Alecto’s pounding on the glass, her desperate pleading, grew muffled and the world turned into a smoggy haze. Jason’s jaw clenched painfully, his back stiffening so that every scar caught on his shirt. His helmet grew suffocating, its HUD no longer helpful but horrifically limiting. He tore it off, trying to breathe.

And then _he_ was there.

“Well, well, we meet again, Jason,” the Joker hummed, eyes burning like only an incarnate demon’s could, “I knew you’d miss me after all the quality time we’d spent together.”

Jason stepped back. “You’re dead.”

“Me? Dead? How could I die to you?” The Joker stepped forward, hands behind his back, neat and prim and proper. Jason’s heart sped up, the brand on his cheek aching. He reached up to touch it. It was raw and howling as if new. “After what I did to you, I couldn’t just…die. Silly little bird.”

Jason stepped back and stumbled. The Joker was on him, his hands at his throat, squeezing just enough. Jason struggled to pull him away, but the monster’s grasp was like iron, his weight sitting on him like a mountain.

“So here you are again,” the Joker said. His hands were locked on Jason’s throat, barely not suffocating him. Jason clutched at the gloved hands, clawing. “Fighting a hopeless battle because of your own stupidity. Only this time, you won’t be the only one hurt.”

There was a distant booming crack and muffled screaming somewhere in the fog.

“Just think, he’ll have her a crazed little ruin, screaming, weeping, broken beyond repair…let’s count how many of your mistakes got us to this point, hmm?”

The brand on his face felt like fire. The damaged muscles of his shoulders and back felt like they were being yanked apart all over again. He only kept clawing at the hands at his throat out of reflex.

“You tried to track me down on your own and, well, you know how that went.” The demon laughed and laughed and laughed, even as he kept speaking, the soundtrack to Jason’s nightmares playing on a continual loop. “And then you went so mad with vengeance you allied with Scarecrow—well, really, I’m proud of that one. Some of my best work. That left Bruce out of the game, and then your little redemption arc left Scarecrow wanting revenge and even _more_ insane!”

He paused, looking thoughtful. “Oooh, from there, where do we go? You dragged someone else into your little mess. Did you think you deserved her? You _failed_ , Robin. You were the one who broke and, let’s face it, it was your fault!” Jason turned away, shutting his eyes. “Did you think he cared? Why did you think he replaced you so quickly? Did you think you deserved that family, that happiness, that home?”

Jason tried to throw the Joker off, but he couldn’t move. The laughter resounded through his mind.

“There is no home for someone like you!”

Jason’s eyes snapped open as the Joker pulled one hand from his throat, still keeping his stranglehold. His knife flashed in the dimness. With a grin, he drove it into Jason’s left thigh.

Jason’s back arched as the pain cut through him—cut through even the haze of the fear gas, real and familiar.

The Joker was dead and this was all in his head. The knife was real, though, and the still hazy shape raising it for another strike.

He rolled and slammed the person’s head into the ground, the Joker vanishing. The vague figure in his grip went limp. Jason drew back, unable to stand, and just…

“You know what?” the Joker’s voice asked, “He’d be able to just power through it. Hell, Tim probably would. But then, they’re real heroes. You’re just a delusional murderer, hallucinating about the man who made him. Oh, that is _so funny_!” He began laughing.

Muffled crashes rippled through the haze. He was pretty sure they were real, but the Joker’s laughter felt so much more present, beating on his flesh, breaking his bones all over again…he sat there, willing it all away, willing it all back. It was just in his head. Just the past, and dead, and only in his head.

The laughter faded into silence, and there was just the memory left.

“Jason!”

He lifted his head to see the room had returned to clarity and Megan hitting the ground next to him. She laid a hand on his chest carefully and drifted another over the wound on his thigh before wrapping her arms around him.

Reflexively, he returned the embrace, burying his head in her shoulder. This was real. This was _now_.

“We need to get you out of here, Red Hood.”

Jason looked up to see Tim poking an unconscious Alecto with his bo staff. A bloody knife lay a few feet from her hand. So she’d stabbed him. That made sense. “Told her two hours,” Jason managed.

“I’m bad at keeping time.”

Jason hid a grateful smile in Megan’s hair. “What happened?”

“I came in from the seaside entrance to find Scarecrow slashing at shadows as your friend here chewed through her restraints to throw herself at him.” He poked Alecto forcefully. “Looks like crazy here shot through his observation window as she snapped, sending him into Batman panic. He’s down for the count.”

Megan drew back to smile at him. Her eyes were puffy and red from weeping, the bruise on her temple looking even worse up close. There was duct tape in her hair, the ends ragged; chewed through her restraints, no kidding. “He said he was going to do worse to you than you did to him.

“He nearly did.” He shuddered at the memory. “My nightmares are hell.”

She nodded quietly.

“I’ll drag Scarecrow to Arkham later, but first, let’s get that leg patched up,” Tim said, crouching down, “You’re lucky you’re not bleeding out.”

Jason looked at the wound. There was lots of blood and it hurt like hell, though the pain was clear and real. It was a much deeper wound than Megan’s earlier injury. He was sitting in a puddle of his own blood. He probably wasn’t going to walk for a while. “Yeah. Right.”

Tim’s hand hesitated as he gripped Jason’s shoulder. Jason shut his eyes and grabbed the younger man’s arm steadily, bracing most of his weight on him as he and Megan hauled him to his feet.

He looped his other arm more securely across Megan’s shoulder as they hauled him into Scarecrow’s broken observation room. He was so damn tired, the old pains accompanying the new howling stab wound.

His stupidity hadn’t gotten anyone decent killed, at least.


	9. Chapter 9

“You can leave, if you want,” Jason murmured as Megan sat a glass of water next to his bed.

“I don’t want to.”

He stared at the glass. “You should.” The sheets all around him were tangled and he’d torn a pillow case up in the night; it’d only get worse when he was alone. He’d be out of it for a while. He had sewn up the wound himself, Tim watching with a critical eye, and he knew damn well how easy it would be for the stitches to tear. Something like that wasn’t an easy fix if it got infected.

“Don’t.” She sat down in the chair she’d dragged from the kitchen. “Don’t pull that on me.”

He shut his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. “It was my fault that happened to you.” And possibly worse, but that went unsaid.

“I agree with her,” a familiar voice said, “Don’t pull that one.” Barbara came in, moving her chair over to the other side of his bed to glare at him. He returned it wearily. She had a tray of food in her lap but he didn’t even glance at it.

“Sorry,” Megan said, “Barb here dropped by an hour ago while you were asleep. I meant to tell you she was here. I, uh, know her deal, she told me. ”

“He can take the surprise,” Barbara said, still glaring at Jason, “You should have waited for help.”

He looked away from her at the open bedroom door. A shaggy doggy head peaked in, spotted him, and Aeneas came trotting in.

Jason stared back at Aeneas’ soulful eyes as he laid his head on the bed. He sighed and patted the bed.

With a wag of his tail, Aeneas jumped onto the bed and turned in a circle three times before settling down, resting his golden head on Jason’s good leg. Jason hesitated for a moment, then began stroking his soft-furred shoulder.

A simple thing, a good thing, an impossibly real thing.

“You probably wouldn’t have a stab wound if you had waited for help,” Barb said into the contented silence.

“Patience isn’t my strong suit.”

“I know. But—“

“It was my problem. I needed to fix it.”

“Not alone, Jason. Dear God, you don’t have to do things alone!”

Considering how well it had gone all the times he’d tried…but then other people, ones he cared about, got hurt. He looked at Megan, scratching at Aeneas’ ears, her bruise vivid even in the soft light. “Alone is…easier.”

“Alone gets you killed,” Megan said, “You feel guilty? Stop. You’re going to tell me to go away. I’ve read this story. That’s how it goes. I’m going to tell you no. That’s how it goes, too. You don’t need to do things alone. You shouldn’t have to.”

He thought about telling her about the hallucination, all the things it had said to him. “Why would you stay, knowing all that I told you?”

“You’re a hero, Jason. That’s not a normal thing, I’ve found out.” She touched the yellowing bruise on her temple. “I chewed through duct tape to save you. Well, try to save you. I think that means I get to keep you.”

He stared at her for a long time. She wouldn’t leave. Barbara and Dick and even the replacement, they wouldn’t leave either. He didn’t know if they’d seen his gibbering, or guessed at what the toxin had done to him. But they wouldn’t leave. He knew that like he knew the beating of his own heart—and he knew _that_ the way only a dead man could. “Yeah, I guess it would.” He stared down at the dog, blinking rapidly. “Thank you.”

Barbara sat the tray down, and placed the glass on top of it. “That, I think, should settle that. Now you’re staying in bed for a while.”

Jason scowled. He knew it was true, yeah, but he didn’t have to like it. Megan hid a giggle. He scowled harder. “There’s still some of those brats out here. And plenty of other problems on top of that.”

“You’d be useless for solving them until your leg heals.”” She looked at Megan. “If you’re willing to put up with him like this for a few days, you can have that bottle of St. George’s Whiskey we left for him in the kitchen.”

“What? Where did you leave that?”

Barbara regarded him coolly over her glasses. “In fact, we should have some right now while he eats. It’s early but we’ve all earned it.”

It did look like a really good meal, with fried eggs and bacon and toast that looked like cinnamon had been poured on it. “I just moved in here, how was I supposed to find the hidden whiskey?”

“It’s not like you were trained by the World’s Greatest Detective or anything.” Barbara backed off and turned towards the door. “Come on, Megan. Tell me how much of a complete dork he was on your first date.”

Which she would then tell to Tim and Dick. Jason looked to Megan, but he could see it was a lost cause. “Go easy on me.”

She kissed him on the forehead as he settled back into his bed. “Oh, I think you can take anything I can dish out.” He liked the way she said that. “Eat, then sleep. You’re home.”

He was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This story originally began as something titled "Jason Gets a Date". I feel really bad for Jason. He can't seem to catch a break, so I figure he should get a chance to get the girl and have a normal life. My OFC was designed to bring out the character points I wanted to hit, and also be someone Jason could actually fall for (shy, kind, and pretty will never cut it; she has to be brave). I hope you all found her tolerable. Once again, thank you!


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